The Holistic Detective - Life on Mars?
by DirkGentlyDG
Summary: After an astrologer discovers proof of life on the planet Mars, Dirk decides to travel to the presentation of this proof, and see what's what. These 'messages from Mars' are soon found to be either the most dangerous things in existence, or the most worthless things since the three blind mice were given contact lenses. / I do not own Dirk Gently or anyone affiliated with him!
1. Newspaper

Within a dimly lit office sat a holistic detective at a cluttered desk.

His cleaner, Elena, had returned to his flat and was most likely setting up tripwires and landmines. He daren't go back there. So here Dirk Gently was. At the office. Late at night. Nothing to do.

His secretary Janice had stormed out at six o'clock, claiming that her return was doubtful. Dirk did what he normally did and made himself a cup of coffee, which he promptly drank, and ordered a pizza, which had never turned up upon the discovery of the orderee's identity.

He now picked up a cold cup of tea, swirling it around, staring into it. If tea leaves could tell the future, the very least tea itself could offer was a solitary comforting that everything would be okay. But no. The tea did nothing of the sort. The heartless thing it was. Dirk brought it up to his lips and drank anyway.

He glanced onto the desk, noticing today's newspaper. He reached over to grab it from his desk.

**'ASTROLOGER FINDS CONCLUSIVE PROOF THERE IS LIFE ON MARS.'**

Glancing round to check there wasn't anyone else in his office with him – which there wasn't – Dirk turned the page to the relevant article and began reading. The article, for the most part, was 40% jargon, 45% crap, 9% advertisements of worthless junk and roughly 1% truth. It was probable that the other 5% had gotten lost behind the editor's sofa. An average run-of-the-mill paper, then.

'... is hosting an open evening in Abelaid Hotel, London to present the conclusive proof. Come along and see for yourselves.'

Dirk raised an eyebrow. As a detective, it was his job to investigate any strange goings-on. And as a holistic detective, it was his duty even more so to seek out and plot the vectors of the interconnectedness of all things. And this seemed like a gold-mine.

The people going would undoubtedly consist of scientists, lawyers, priests, the usual lot. But mingling with those would be the wacko conspiracy theorists, the UFO spotters. The gullible lot. And, in Dirk's dictionary, the closest word to 'gullible' is 'money'. In actual fact, everything between 'herring' and 'marmalade' is missing after Janice's tantrum, in which she stormed out, taking with her a bundle of pages from the said dictionary.

Dirk stood up, leaving his paper on the desk, and meandered over to the window. He stared outside onto the dark streets of London, a few puddles reflecting the light from the street lamps back into Dirk's eyes. So vacant and empty. Boring, to say the least.

"I'm sure this experience will be most enlightening," thought Dirk out loud. "Besides, not like there's much else going on. The web of interconnected events will shine through." And with that, he pulled out his laptop from under a large pile of papers, and got to work.

Despite the fact he had no internet due to not paying his bills.

Tomorrow, then.


	2. Arrival

"Dirk," yawned Richard MacDuff, "you still haven't actually told me why we're taking four hours to drive to some hotel." The tall, sandy-haired man was now sitting in the passenger seat of Dirk's thirty year-old Austin Leyland Princess as it trundled along a road in the English countryside. Trundling wasn't a verb easily carried out by many things, but the Princess managed it perfectly (despite the fact that, by the very definition of trundling, it was not perfect whatsoever).

"We have to make sure that the newspapers are not lying to the great British public once more, MacDuff," Dirk explained, eyes focused on the road ahead of them, carrying out a wrestling match with the steering wheel to keep the car from heading off the road and crashing into either a fence or a horse. Of course, by now, that wrestling match had practically become fully automated for Dirk, coded into his subconscious. He carried it out every time he drove the Princess, and had learned all the little patterns of misturns, misbumps and miscrashes.

"Lying about _what?_" Richard pressed, decidedly fed up with the situation. Richard had learned to cope with being fed up, especially as Dirk's partner – or as Dirk insists: assistant.

"Aliens!" Dirk interjected. "Apparently a certain Professor Dart has discovered evidence of life on the fourth planet in our solar system – Mars." He took a moment to run his tongue along his teeth before continuing, "And now he's hosting a display of this so-called evidence at Abelaid Hotel. He's invited multiple international bigwigs – no doubt our old friends at the Pentagon will be taking an interest in this – and we will be inviting ourselves along, as well. We must ensure we arrive early to secure our positions, but, upon seeing my status as a holistic detective, I am confident he will allow us entry."

Richard breathed in through his nose, processing all of the information Dirk had just fired at him. Understanding a single word Dirk spewed out was a task in itself, and an Olympic gold medal was really the only reward suitable for achieving such a goal. Dirk went out of his way to make no sense. It went against every value he held, after all. His motto was: 'Embrace the chaos!' and he continually stated that imposing order on the world only blinded us to its true workings and wonders. Other people's responses to the said motto usually consisted of, 'What?' And it was a sensible response, let's be honest. But Richard now was tasked with the even harder job of coming up with a reply to Dirk's explanation that would allow him to both state how confused he was and not come across as stupid. An extremely difficult feat to achieve, but Richard was filled with confidence today. Perhaps, today would be his day.

"Aliens?"

And that, was that.

"Yes," replied Dirk, "Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"Well," Richard said, frowning a little, "Yes, I heard. No, I did not understand."

"Try to, will you, MacDuff? It makes things much simpler for both you and my good self. Alien sightings are commonplace, yet public presentations of _evidence_ of these aliens are not. We must determine the truth!" Dirk leaned forward to peer under the mirror and through the windshield, greeted with the sight of Abelaid Hotel not too far from their current whereabouts. "Aha!" he remarked. "We'll be there in no time."

* * *

The brown Austin Leyland Princess came to a stop on the gravel that the hotel had dumped outside and named a car park. Stepping out, Dirk straightened and tucked his dark shirt back into his brown jeans, running a hand down his pale yellow tie, as if to check it was still there. Reaching back into the car, he fumbled for his tweed jacket, which was tucked neatly behind the seat, and pulled it out, slamming the door shut and pulling the jacket on in one swift motion.

During this entire process, Richard had stepped out and was watching Dirk curiously from the other side of the Princess. His own pale blue shirt and black waistcoat (complete with light silver tie) was covered by a dark wool coat, collar turned up. "So, what's the time?" asked Richard.

Dirk pushed the sleeve of his jacket up to check his watch. It was a cheap, silver replica made to look like an expensive watch. Cheap knockoffs were one of the great mysteries of the world. They looked exactly the same as the expensive originals, save for the name and whatever country it was on the back. So how did they both not work as well as the original and sell more than the original? The price undoubtedly played a large part in this – money made the world go round, and money was something Dirk was lacking in a lot of the time.

He squinted at the face of his watch, the sun reflecting in the glass as he stared at the hands and tried to interpret their meaning. "It's eighteen minutes to seven in the evening," he remarked, letting his sleeve unfurl to its original position happily. Having done this, Dirk quickly remembered a vital fact that was necessary, in this particular instance, to tell the time. "Oh, yeah, and my watch is broken. So it's not actually eighteen minutes to seven in the evening, but that is what the time was when the watch broke!"

Richard nodded. "Helpful," he replied sarcastically, letting his hands slip into his pockets.

"If we can discover how long ago the watch broke, however," Dirk began explaining, "Then we can, in fact, discover what the time at _this_ moment is!"

"And how long ago _did_ the watch break?"

"Six weeks ago," said Dirk bluntly. He then tacked a meaningless, "Ish," onto the end. Dirk shrugged and started to make his way to the hotel entrance, MacDuff meandering alongside him.

The entrance had a set of stone steps leading up to the double doors, to make you feel that you were entering somewhere important and grand. Of course, just after you had stepped inside, there were steps heading straight back down to ground level, rather defeating the purpose of having the stairs in the first place. The interior was standard for a hotel. The reception lobby was a considerably adequate size, just enough to accommodate on weekends. There were walls, painted red to make them exciting, and a brown carpet, specifically coloured to dull down the excitingness of the walls, in case they got too out of hand.

There was a large check-in desk – which, it should be mentioned, was also coloured the same depressing brown – that was surprisingly empty, save for the person sitting behind it. They, however, seemed far more interested in the crossword just in front of them as opposed to actually doing any kind of checking-in.

Dirk peered round the room, noticing an open door at the far end, just past the check-in desk. Deciding that this must be where the exhibition was being held, Dirk strode towards the door, Richard turning around in confusion and following.

Sure enough, the sound of mumbled conversation echoed around the corner, and as Dirk pushed the door creakily open, the direction of a few of the voices changed to look towards the door. Dirk strolled in to be greeted by a large, spacious room within which were guests dressed in suits and dresses, holding glasses of alcoholic drinks and holding varied conversations. The large majority of these, Dirk noticed, were held by one person doing all the talking – with everyone else nodding and occasionally murmuring "Ah yes," and "Really?" and "Interesting..." as you do in these conversations.

Dirk and Richard walked to the edge of the crowd, and surveyed the room. It was spacious, with a higher-than-average roof, painted white to match the walls. The floor was made of shiny oak floorboards which amplified the sound of each footstep seemingly before it was made.

"Which one of this lot," Richard asked, gesturing at the crowd, "Do you think is the host? What's-his-name, er –"

"Professor Dart," Dirk said. "I'm not sure. Our best course of action would be to listen in on people's conversations. I'm sure he will soon identify himself via the manner of his conversation." Dirk nodded promptly and pointed straight forward. "We're bound to run into him." Dirk briskly walked off, Richard being caught a little off-guard – so he had to hop-walk to keep up.

Richard had listened to people's conversations before – he was a _partner_ in the detective agency – but this just seemed like being nosy.

"Oh yes? I had heard about that. Apparently they've released a new kind of balloon, it's meant to –" No.

"Good heavens, even I couldn't take the excitement of the bouncy castle –" No.

"And he's coming up here tomorrow, flying all the way from Peru –" No.

The room seemed to extend far beyond Richard's line of sight, with the sound of hundreds of conversations occupying every separate molecule of air. The large majority of the noise was filled by the aforementioned "Ah yes,"es, "Really?"s and "Interesting..."s. This was hopeless, thought Richard.

Richard stared at the wall, as you do when you're thinking hard about something. Walls are experts at taking a good, hard stare – even though they were not specifically designed for the job. But if something _was_ designed for staring at when you're thinking hard about something, it most likely would not sell very well because of the availability of the much-easier staring at the wall option.

Just as this particular train of thought was steaming away, Dirk ran onto the tracks and shunted it aside and into a hedge. "MacDuff," he called over his shoulder. "Have you spotted him?"

"No," Richard said, "why don't we just ask?"

Dirk scratched the back of his head before replying. "It is very doubtful," he said, "that the professor is in this here room at this here moment. He is most likely preparing and getting ready to present whatever evidence he has gathered together. Perhaps," he added, "we should just talk to the guests and see what information we can squeeze out of them. And see if any of them have any mysteries in need of solving."

After Dirk's explanation, a girl who was barely three steps away from them turned around to face Dirk and Richard.

Richard frowned a little. "Hello," he said.

"Hello!" she beamed in reply. "Are you here for the aliens?"

Dirk tipped his head back a little. She was relatively short, with blonde hair, but the main distinguishing feature was the disproportionately large camera hanging from a strap around her neck. How people could just casually cameras of that size around like nothing was beyond Dirk. They must've gotten stuck in every door frame, and the strategy to holding it in a straight line at whatever it is you wanted to take a photograph of seemed to be more complicated than the very methods Dirk based his detective agency around.

"Er," Dirk started, getting back on track with the conversation, "Yes, I am. Dirk, Dirk Gently."

She smiled a little and held out her hand, somehow not bumping into the camera in the process. "Louise," she said, "Louise Walton."

Dirk shook her hand firmly, a grin permanently on his face.

Richard introduced himself, "Richard MacDuff." He shook her hand, glancing over at Dirk momentarily. "Partner," he added.

"Assistant," Dirk corrected. "I'm a holistic detective. We're here to determine the truth behind all of this Martian business Professor Dart appears to be bumbling on about."

"Oh, I see," she nodded in that way where you nod because there is no other way to agree without sounding stupid. "I'm a journalist. Sent here to take some photographs for Fathom. It's a magazine."

Dirk and Richard had, in fact, heard of the magazine before. Its editor, Michael Wenton-Weakes was a friend of Richard. Well, perhaps 'friend' is pushing it. Its editor, Michael Wenton-Weakes knew who Richard was. Richard disliked Michael because Michael was very obnoxious. He was very privileged and well-off, but he was sorry for himself because he thought the world didn't understand the problems of privileged and well-off people. Michael, however disliked Richard simply because Richard disliked Michael.

"I will tell you, though," Louise said, "my day has been hardly ordinary."

"Oh?" Dirk asked, intrigued. "Please, tell me more." Hardly ordinary occurrences were Dirk's speciality.


End file.
